Cracked pavement and run-down furniture on street corners is part of normalcy for the residents of Mountain View. You may walk down the street and see a person sitting on that neglected chair, and next to him a five-year-old playing with the mud in between those two broken pieces of cement. To an outsider these things may be visually ugly or a result of somebody not caring about their property; for a Mountain View resident this is our life and community.

One factor in run-down properties is "slumlords." There are landlords that do not care about their properties simply because the property is in Mountain View and they have a negative stereotype of Mountain View. As a result, you have buildings and land that aren't taken care of and are no longer beautiful. These issues need to change, and there are ways to do so. I see the most effective way is to form a resident council and speak directly to the landlords about the issues that aren't getting fixed and need to be looked at.